Newton, Riviera & Dialogues. Collection FOTOGRAFIS x Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton Foundation at the
Museum of Photography, Berlin
September 5, 2025 – February 15, 2026
Grand Hôtel du Cap, Marie Claire, Antibes 1972
© Helmut Newton Foundation
Helmut Newton, Untitled, Saint-Tropez 1975
© Helmut Newton Foundation
In summer 2022, Foundation Director Matthias Harder co-curated the solo exhibition "Newton, Riviera" with Guillaume de Sardes for the historic Villa Sauber in Monte-Carlo. It was the first time this late residence of the Newtons and the region where many iconic Helmut Newton photographs were created was given in-depth attention. A selection of that exhibition is now being presented—parallel to "Dialogues. Collection FOTOGRAFIS x Helmut Newton”—at the Berlin foundation.
At the turn of 1981/82, Helmut Newton and his wife June moved from Paris to Monte Carlo. This relocation not only changed their main residence to the French Mediterranean coast but also dramatically shifted the perspectives and backgrounds of Newton's commissioned work. From then on, it wasn't the casual or elegant Parisian chic but the more glamorous society that he photographed—often juxtaposed against the concrete walls of construction sites in Monaco as a backdrop for fashion shoots.
Newton's fascination with the French Riviera started much earlier. As early as 1964, he and June bought a small stone house near Ramatuelle, close to Saint-Tropez. From then on, they spent their summers there, engaging in intense artistic work. The exhibition unites a large number of early, sometimes unique vintage or lifetime prints. During the 1980s and 1990s, cities like Cannes and Nice were also popular locations for Newton’s striking fashion shoots. He also visited other parts of the Riviera, such as Cap d’Antibes, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Menton, and even across the border to Bordighera, Italy. He created works across his three main genres—fashion, portrait, and nude—with the intense light in these images often playing a central role.
American Vogue, Monaco 2003
© Helmut Newton Foundation
Jude Law, Monaco 2001
© Helmut Newton Foundation
Helmut Newton also occasionally photographed at night from his apartment balcony in Monaco, capturing the quiet, dark sea. Similar melancholic landscape photographs were created in Berlin in the mid-1990s and culminated in one of his last gallery exhibitions titled "Sex and Landscapes" in 2001 at the Galerie de Pury & Luxembourg in Zurich, which also posthumously opened his Berlin foundation in June 2004. By presenting these large-format original prints in the current "Riviera" exhibition, the circle closes again—over 20 years later. Newton’s very last photo shoot, a fashion editorial for Italian Vogue, also took place on the Mediterranean coast of Monaco. One of the images now appears as a giant wall mural in the new exhibition, which—despite more than 100 photographs—can only offer a small glimpse of this important body of work.
The King and the Queen of a Senior Citizen Dance,
NYC, 1970
Courtesy Collection FOTOGRAFIS,
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien
Hanna Schygulla and costume designer Edith Head,
Los Angeles 1980
© Helmut Newton Foundation
In recent years, the Helmut Newton Foundation has featured not only solo and themed group exhibitions but also photographic collections—"Between Art & Fashion" (Carla Sozzani Collection, 2018) and "Chronorama" (Pinault Collection, 2024). Both were exceptionally curated and featured major icons of photographic history.
The Critic – Mrs. Cavanaugh and Friend about to enter
the Metropolitan Opera House, New York 1943
Courtesy Collection FOTOGRAFIS,
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien
Blumarine, Monaco 1994
© Helmut Newton Foundation
The current collaboration with the "Collection FOTOGRAFIS" from Bank Austria Kunstforum Vienna continues this approach. It consists of over 60 diptychs. Inspired partly by the newsletter of the Collezione Ettore Molinario—which presents two photographs from the Milan collection in dialogue—selected photographs from the prestigious Viennese collection now engage in a thought-provoking visual conversation with works from the Helmut Newton Foundation archive.
Ohne Titel, ca. 1935
Courtesy Collection FOTOGRAFIS,
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien
Close-up, Italian Vogue, Bordighera 1982
© Helmut Newton Foundation
Curators Bettina M. Busse (Kunstforum) and Matthias Harder (Helmut Newton Foundation) paired the works based on intuition and association. Two photographs are always shown side by side: portraits, still lifes, landscapes, architecture, or surrealistic fashion and nude photographs from entirely different eras. Sometimes the connection is formal, sometimes thematic. Occasionally, the pairing may seem arbitrary or humorous, but each one opens a vast imaginative space for the viewer.
Charles Baudelaire, 1863
Courtesy Collection FOTOGRAFIS,
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien
Jack Nicholson, Los Angeles 1985
© Helmut Newton Foundation
Excitement, ca. 1888
Courtesy Collection FOTOGRAFIS,
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien
Eva Herzigová, Blumarine, Monaco 1995
© Helmut Newton Foundation
"Dialogues. Collection FOTOGRAFIS x Helmut Newton" presents various facets of humanity and the evolution of social life over a century—through pairings of Newton’s photographs with works by Diane Arbus, Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Bourke-White, Elliott Erwitt, Florence Henri, Duane Michals, Paul Strand, Man Ray, August Sander, Judy Dater, Otto Steinert, and many other renowned names in 19th- and 20th-century photography. These often complementary or contrasting image pairs have never been shown together before.
HELMUT NEWTON FOUNDATION
MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Jebensstrasse 2, 10623 Berlin
